A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel

Great writer. Book arrived in good condition. Finally found this on Amazon after searching for it on other sites.

OK, I get the basic structure of the book, though I found the whole thing very laboured in terms of the intro and the build-up. The experience for the kids was of course, very unsettling, but I just found it didn't deliver. Took be 3 or 4 weeks to fonish it as it was certainly a book I could put down, happily. Some nice narrative from inside the head of the kids, but overall, it's not going to be on anybody's classi lists in the future. Towards the end I just had to roll my eyes when references to 'cameraperson' and 'camerapersons' started to appear. Just say cameraman or camerawomen if it's not a man, for goodness sake! It's enough to steer you away from this author.

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The Barrett's are a normal family who live in New England. All of them are devastated when Marjorie, the 14 year old daughter, exhibits signs of acute schizophrenia. At first, they opt to use conventional psychiatry and psychology for treatment, but when her condition worsens, her father John feels that his new found devotion in religion is the key to her health. He believes his daughter is possessed by demons and modern medicine can't help. Merry, the youngest daughter at 8, is just confused. She has no idea what's wrong with her sister and becomes annoyed that no one pays attention to her anymore. The family's lives get turned upside down when they become involved in filming a reality TV show called The Possession about exorcising the demon from their daughter. Is Marjorie really possessed? Is she faking or is she simply mentally ill? A Head Full of Ghosts is a complex book that tells its story in a variety of ways. The story is being told to a best selling author who is writing adult Merry's account of the events. Some scenes are in present day with Merry chatting with the author, but her account is told through the eyes of her eight year old self. Even assuming Merry remembers everything accurately (which she admits she probably isn't) and isn't lying, she doesn't really know everything that happened. She was eight and protected from a lot of what went on behind the scenes and the decision-making processes. Of course she cared for her sister, but after a while simply became annoyed that no one really paid attention to her any longer. No one plays games with her anymore and her boundless energy is now seen as an annoyance since her sister has been sick. When horrible things start happening, Merry is of course terrified but has no idea if her sister is faking, possessed, or mentally ill. All she knows is that Marjorie isn't a fun playmate anymore and has no idea if the things she perceives are real or just imagination heightened by fear. As a result of her sister's situation, Merry's parents are also very different people. Her father John is suddenly devoutly religious and prays for long periods of time. Merry is mostly confused by it because it was never part of her life. Now she feels deficient in her father's eyes and scared of his fervor. The religious leaders that come to supervise and exorcise take complete control. If he's capable of finding such an extreme "solution" to his daughter's problem, what else is he capable of? Her mother Sarah doesn't agree with the religious solution, but she's desperate to find a cure. She isn't happy about the TV show or the exorcism, so she turns to drinking heavily and becoming moody. The TV show portrays her as confused and barely there, but she always tried to keep Merry and Marjorie (to a lesser extent) from being exploited or scared. I found Merry's narrative rings true. She's just a normal kid, not some super smart, precocious adult version of a kid and it's refreshing. This brings us to Marjorie. Most possession stories are about fear of girls turning into women, including becoming sexual, defying authority, and simply existing. This one seems to be no different. Marjorie is 14 years old, just around puberty. She used to be cheerful and eager to write stories with her little sister, but now, she wants some privacy and a life away from her family. Like normal teenage girl, she is contrary and sullen. Unlike a normal teenage girl, she is prone to fits of violence and other strange behavior. The most memorable one is after she's been sick, she graphically and messily masturbates while on her period and then urinates and defecates on the carpet. This is the most extreme and disgusting version of this type of scene in fiction. It really boils down to fear of women's sexuality by showing normal sexual expression in a grotesque way. In The Exorcist, it was Reagan stabbing her genitals and shoving her mother's face in the wound while spewing obscenities. A Head Full of Ghosts does the same thing, taking it to further extreme. She also does the requisite rebellious things turned up: physically fighting her father, obscenities, cursing the church, etc, which are an exaggerated version of normal teenage rebellion. It seems like Marjorie is faking for much of the novel, she admits it herself. However, she may be lying or delusional or possessed. I like that Merry and the readers by extension never definitely know which one. In addition to this account, a blog by an annoying horror fan (who also turns out to be Merry writing under a pseudonym) analyzing and commenting on The Possession and descriptions of scenes from the actual TV show (edited from actual events or re-enactments aired on the Discovery Channel) are included in the story. I love how meta the story is in analyzing and picking apart itself so I don't have to do it (but I did a bit anyway). The entire narrative is through Merry's eyes. The ending throws the veracity of literally everything into question and I like it. Some may see the entire novel as pointless at that point, but I enjoyed the journey. I don't find the book scary, but it is unsettling. The suspense is built at times, but sometimes huge revelations are stated plainly. A couple of the scenes are practically burned into my brain and I enjoyed Tremblay's unique writing as he layered the story deceptively through one point of view. He took a genre I don't enjoy and made it interesting to me. IT still has misogynistic elements, but it's hard to get away from when it's an inherent part of the genre. I can't wait for his next book, Disappearance at Devil's Rock.

Winner of this year's Bram Stoker Award, lauded by Michael Rowe and a blurb from Stephen King (yes, I know he blurbs a lot, but this one is catchy: "A Head Full of Ghosts scared the living hell out of me, and I'm pretty hard to scare"), how could I resist reading Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts? And, fortunately, all of the recommendations and raves prove to be accurate, A Head Full of Ghosts is not only, as Mr King says, "scary" but it is also very, very clever and an engrossing nailbiting read that is hard to put down once begun. A simple plot, one we have all encountered before, is stretched and layered with unreliable and second-hand narrators that conceal and amplify the horror. That all the literary flourishes create a conceptual haunted house of mirrors that reflect, and reflect upon, the actual writing of horror, the book we are reading and horror itself, is all part of the fun. Tremblay uses a light touch on satirizing the reality TV genre, religion and writing on the horror genre (though I admit my pretensions were pricked to the point that I physically flinched during the latter), and it pays off with a climax after the climax that is so nihilistic, and that I didn't see coming, that it hurts and is satisfying in equal measures. A Head Full of Ghosts is an instant horror classic and a literary gem. complete review at [...]

At the end of the book, in the section "Paul Tremblay recommends", where he lists books and movies which inspired him and are the main rescource for exorcism, I was hit by this sentence: "...And really, the best possession stories are ultimately about our tendency and eagerness to surrender to obsession". I feel this sums up the story of Marjorie and her family. I have been reading the book constantly asking myself: is she possessed or not? Is she faking it? How can she hurt herself deliberately like this? And reading some other reviews of "A head full of ghosts" I saw that I was not the only one questioning myself. It can be very unnerving, because right when you have decided she is faking her possession, she will behave in a way that makes you think she is really haunted by a demon. I guess this is mainly the purpose of the book. Go deep into the human mind, see how each person reacts to a single event, how one person stays focused and another one loses it completely. Very interesting. I had never read anything about a possession, and I feel that I started by thwe most unusual recount of one. Second book from Paul Tremblay after "The cabin at the end of the world", and honestly I want to read the other couple books that he wrote. Really worth the time. Enjoy your reading!!! :)

The book has been written pretty cleverly. I would say it has all the elements from being a psychological thriller to that creepy stuff it holds till the ending. The entire Barrett family nailed it...totally💯🙌